THE RECORD OF RAMBOUILLET.
“Imagine that this castle were your court,
And that you lay, for pleasure, here a space,
Not of compulsion or necessity.”— Kit Marlowe.
Rambouillet is an old château where feudal knights once lived like little kings. In its gardens Euphuism reigned supreme. It is a palace, in whose chambers monarchs have feasted, and at whose gates they have asked, when fugitives, for water and a crust of bread. It commenced its career as a cradle of knights; it is finishing it as an asylum for the orphan children of warriors. The commencement and finale are not unworthy of one another; but, between the two, there have been some less appropriate disposals of this old chevalier’s residence. For a short period it was something between Hampton Court and Rosherville. In the very place where the canons of the Sainte Chapelle were privileged to kiss the cheeks of the Duchess of Burgundy, the denizens of the Faubourg St. Antoine could revel, if they could only pay for their sport. Where the knightly D’Amaurys held their feudal state, where King Francis followed the chase, and the Chevalier Florian sang, and Penthièvre earned immortality by the practice of heavenly virtues; where Louis enthroned Du Barry, and Napoleon presided over councils, holding the destiny of thrones in the balance of his will, there the sorriest mechanic had, with a few francs in his hand, the right of entrance. The gayest lorettes of the capital smoked their cigarettes where Julie D’Angennes fenced with love; and the bower of queens and the refuge of an empress rang with echoes, born of light-heartedness and lighter wine. Louis Napoleon has, however, established a better order of things.
To a Norman chief, of knightly character, if not of knightly title, and to the Norman tongue, Rabouillet, as it used to be written, or the “Rabbit warren,” owes the name given to the palace, about thirteen leagues from Paris, and to the village which clusters around it. The former is now a quaint and confused pile, the chief tower of which alone is now older than the days of Hugues Capet. Some authors describe the range of buildings as taking the form of a horseshoe; but the hoof would be indescribable to which a shoe so shaped could be fittingly applied. The changes and additions have been as much without end as without taste. In its present architectural entirety it wears as motley an aspect as Cœur de Lion might, were he to walk-down Pall Mall with a modern paletót over his suit of complete steel.
The early masters of Rambouillet were a knightly, powerful but uninteresting race. It is sufficient to record of the chivalric D’Amaurys that they held it, to the satisfaction of few people but themselves, from 1003 to 1317. Further record these sainted proprietors require not. We will let them sleep on undisturbedly, their arms crossed on their breast, in the peace of a well-merited oblivion. Requiescat!
One relic of the knightly days, however, survived to the period of the first French Revolution. In the domain of Rambouillet was the fief of Montorgueil. It was held by the prior of St. Thomas d’Epernon, on the following service: the good prior was bound to present himself yearly at the gate of Rambouillet, bareheaded, with a garland on his brow, and mounted on a piebald horse, touching whom it was bad service if the animal had not four white feet.
The prior, fully armed like a knight, save that his white gloves were of a delicate texture, carried a flask of wine at his saddle-bow. In one hand he held a cake, to the making of which had gone a bushel of flour—an equal measure of wheat was also the fee of the lord. The officers of the latter examined narrowly into the completeness of the service. If they pronounced it imperfect the prior of Epernon was mulcted of the revenues of his fief for the year ensuing.
In later days the ceremony lost much of its meaning; but down to the period of its extinction, the wine, the cake, and the garland, were never wanting; and the maidens of Rambouillet were said to be more exacting than the baronial knights themselves, from whom many of them were descended. The festival was ever a joyous one, as became a feudal lord, whose kitchen fireplace was of such dimensions that a horseman might ride into it, and skim the pot as he stood in his stirrups.